


You Ain't Getting Any Younger, Are You?

by Pets



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe- Mafia, Canon Trans Character, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mentions of STDs, bite me, everyone is rich as fuck and frank ocean's super rich kids totally is the soundtrack of their lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-12
Updated: 2014-08-12
Packaged: 2018-02-12 21:47:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2125767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pets/pseuds/Pets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"No." Connor soothed her. "He's coming back. I'll bet you." Connor reached into his back pocket, pulled out a 10 dollar bill, and raised in to Hazel. "I'll bet you 10 dollars that he'll come back before you turn 16. I win, you give me 10 bucks, you win it's the other way around."</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Ain't Getting Any Younger, Are You?

~

**“He doesn't sleep**

**So in truth he never wakes up”**

**Macklemore & Ryan Lewis in the song “Arrows” by Fences**

~

 

“We found him totally tweaked out behind that bar on Ellis. Some guy’s hands in his pants, trying to jack him off or something. Dude was pretty drunk too. Connor pretty much broke his hand. He won’t be jacking off anybody, including himself for a long time.”

Travis gave his younger brother a high five.

“Thanks guys, I’m sure he’ll be okay. “ Malcolm said glancing back at Hazel directing Frank to place him on the couch.

“No problem. And,” Travis took a $10 bill out of his pocket. “Gove this to Hazel, alright. She’ll know what for.”

Malcolm thanked the brother once again and closed the door.

He walked back to where his friends were fussing over Nico.

Hazel seemed to taking the arrival of her brother, even though passed out and covered in glitter, surprisingly well. She held on to his limp hand as she checked his temperature for the 5th time.

Malcolm looked at Nico properly now.

It had been a real rush when the Stoll Brothers showed up to Hazel’s 16th birthday 2 hours late with her brother of over their shoulders.

His black hair had been cut short, buzzed off. He had added a septum earring and through his thin black shirt, Malcolm saw outlines of nipple piercings.

Nico’s face was gaunt. Side effects of doing crack. Malcolm would know.

And he was skinny. Dangerously skinny. His hands showed bones Malcolm was pretty sure weren’t supposed to show.

“You know,” she chucked, sadness in her tone. “He always said he was going to be the one to get me the best sweet sixteen present ever.

Malcolm squeezed her shoulder and went to the kitchen to try and find some Neosporin.

~

**“How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof, thinking of home.”**

**― William Faulkner**

~

Hazel found herself sleeping on her father’s bog chair, a horse blanket placed over her body.

She smiled, thinking about how it was the same blanket Frank bought her as gift after their 2nd month anniversary.

Then she remembered what had gotten her in that position in the first placed.

Her sweet sixteen. The Stolls practically crashing into the house, her brother in tow, passed out form drugs and alcohol and god knows what.

She saw her brother sleeping on the couch, his long lanky arm thrown across his face and his left leg half on the couch, half stepping on the floor.

It was a position she was familiar with, seeing how when they were younger and feeling rebellious, they would sneak from their rooms and sleep in the parlor.

She got up out of her seat quietly and inched her way toward her brother’s sleeping form.

She was still wearing her dress from last night and the chains made noise when she walked. She remembered the amount of shopping trips to the 5th that it had taken to find this dress. The time and energy that she taken and the amount of money she had spent. It was supposed to be the highlight of the party. Hazel and her beautiful dress. Look how lucky she is. But she lost her mother, sister and brother. All she has is her beautiful dress with the chains which made too much noise.

Hazel willed them to be quiet and came even closer to her brother.

She finally got close enough to grab his hand and squeezed it.

Because you just don’t hold a hand like Nico’s.

It was bony and cold but it was terribly soft. And it felt like home.

But there was something new and wrong.

Big angry cuts going from the center of his palm to the nook of his elbow.

Hazel’s face turned stoic as she grabbed his other arm and saw identical one slashed down.

She wanted to scream, to shake him and yell, she wanted to cry and ask why they were so fucked up.

Because when she pulls back the sleeves of her 6,000 dollar, day old dress, she sees the same exact marks.

~

**“In case you didn't know, dead people don't bleed. If you can bleed-see it, feel it-then you know you're alive. It's irrefutable, undeniable proof. Sometimes I just need a little reminder.”**

**― Amy Efaw, After**

~

Nico wakes up around noon.

Hazel had been 16 for a day.

She had gone up to her stepmother’s room and stolen some coverup.

She took her brother’s left arm and started dabbing make up over the older cuts.

Maybe she woke him up with the feather-soft touch of the makeup crush or maybe the drugs finally stop doing whatever they did.

What it was, Nico wakes up around noon.

And Hazel had been 16 for a day and a half.

**~**

**“Some people wake up drowsy. Some people wake up energized. I wake up dead.”**

**― John Marsden, Tomorrow, When the War Began**

**~**

“So where did you go?” Hazel asked sliding a water bottle across the kitchen island.

“I took a train down to Philadelphia.” He says, opening the bottle.

“Philadelphia. Nico, you know we have houses in the most exciting places in the world, and you choose Philly?”

Nico just shrugged and took a sip of his water.

“I would have choose Ibiza… just. Go on.” Hazel sat down on of the bar stools.

“Well, I kinda just ghosted around Philly for a while. Went to DC, got in some trob-“

“Trouble? Nico! Jesus Christ, what would Dad do if he knew you got in trouble! He would send you off to boarding school. He would send me off to boarding school!”

“Dad knows.”

Hazel almost feel over.

“Really?”

“Yeah he was the one who brought me back up here. Apparently Dad had some weight as the Italian mafia leader here, right?”

“But you still didn’t come home.” She sighed.

“Hazel. I-“

“Nico, you were gone for so long. I’ve never been that alone. Even when Bianca died, you were there. And so much happened when were gone. Piper came out. Annabeth and Reyna finally started dating, Jason ran off to California. Frank had SRS.”

“Wow. I missed a lot.”

“Well, you can’t go missing for a year and a half and except everyone to be the same.”

“What about you?”

“I turned 16.”

~

**“The year you were born marks only your entry into the world. Other years where you prove your worth, they are the ones worth celebrating.”**

**― Jarod Kintz, This Book Title is Invisible**

~

“You wanna call the academy, let them know that you are coming back to finish the term up?”

“What’s the point, Hazel?”

“They can’t legally kick you out until you are 20, so earn your fucking high school diploma and talk to me later.”

~

**“Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library and educate yourself if you've got any guts. Some of you like Pep rallies and plastic robots who tell you what to read.”**

**― Frank Zappa**

~

“So have you gone to see Percy?”

“I mean, I’m on the visiting list. Just haven’t have time.”

Nico nodded and turned back to the TV, the news anchor rattling on about the newest app craze.

“Do you want to see him?”

Hazel thought about it.

“No.” She winced at her own harshness. “I mean, I don’t think he wants to see him suffer.”

“He has 13 years left.”

“Yeah.”

They were quiet for a while after that. The TV talking enough for the both of them.

“Why do you think he did it?’ Nico started.

He hadn’t been there during the trail. He didn’t know about the witness or the accomplices. He didn’t know about how the judge looked at Percy as if he was trash and not a human being. He didn’t know about how Percy had hung his head as he plead guilty to grand theft and trespassing.

But he knew the outcome. 16 years locked up in Buffalo.

“Percy says he did it because of his mom.” Hazel answered.

“Sally?”

“Apparently he couldn’t pay for college. Not after his father cut him off.”

“He could have asked us. Or Jason. Or Piper. Or Rachel. Or Frank.”

“You know, Percy. Never been up for charity.”

“But he wouldn’t hesitate to give it.” Nico shook his head and smiled to the side, obviously thinking of a memory only him and the son of Poseidon shared.

**~**

**“The greater ignorance towards a country is not ignoring what its politicians have to say, it is ignoring what the inmates in its prisons have to say.”**

**― Criss Jami**

**~**

“How’s Dad?” Hazel yelled at the bathroom door as she sat in Nico’s room, waiting for him to get out of the shower.

“What? What?” Nico yelled on top the wound o

She heard the water stop and the shower door slide open.

Seconds later, Nico stepped out a towel wrapped around his hips.

“I asked how dad is.” She threw a t shirt at him.

“I don’t know.” He replied, putting the shirt on, the cloth muffling his words. “The last I heard he was getting hung up in South Africa. Some diamonds deal.”

Hazel frowned. Both she and her brother were quite aware of their father’s less than legal acts. And it’s not to say that Hades is a bad person. After Frank and Nico came out together (there was a lot of red faces, mumbling and looks to each other for reassurance), the mobster had donate money to the LGBT movement. And if the HRC leader has received 100,000 dollars every two years ever since, it is probably her father’s fault. But when Nico’s mother died, and then Bianca just a few weeks after, he became even more reserved and started leaving a ten year old Nico and a nine year old Hazel alone for months in their giant brownstone on the Upper East Side.

“Is he going to call us in?” Hazel asked as she turned, to obstruct the view of her brother pulling on his pants.

“Spoken like a true daughter of the Mafia.” Nico chuckled behind her.

“You are more mob with your black and that gold chain. Me? I look like an angel compared to you and your nipple piercings.”

“Well you’re better at it.”

“How can you be good at being a gangster?” Hazel turned to her brother as he sat down on the bed.

“You have that kind of mind for it. For you and Dad, even Bianca, it isn’t about money. It’s about some sense of control. Me, I let go of that sense of self-control a long time ago.”

**~**

**“I didn’t marry the mob; I was born into it.”**

**― Shay Savage, Uncockblockable**

**~**

“I got sick.” Nico mumbled they were making dinner.

“What?” Hazel almost dropped the knife on her hand. “Like…”

“Yeah.”

“What was it?”

“The clap.”

Hazel grunted.

“What?”

“You could have died.”

“I caught it.”

“You could have died.”

“It’s gonorrhea.”

“IT’S STILL AN STD!”

Hazel placed the knife down and turned to her brother.

“And what if it’s not the clap next time? What if it’s herpes or chlamydia or AIDS? What if you were positive Nico? I can’t see you waste away, not like my mother. And it would be always because you decided to do something stupid and dumb. It’s because you ran away. Because I couldn’t be like your mom or your sister even though I try Nico, I try desperately and half the time I feel like you don’t even want me around.”

Hazel stepped back, her outburst was not called for. She should be embracing him not pushing him away. Nico had just come back. She was going to upset him. He was going to run again and this time she won’t find him.

Then Nico swept her up in a hug.

Which was weird.

First because Nico had grown a couple inches in the past year and now when he hugged her he had to bend down.

Second because Hazel hadn’t been hugged in a long time and the overall warmth someone else’s body was shocking.

Third because through that warmth she felt all the adoration and affection Nico felt for her.

“I love you.” Nico mumbled into her shoulder. “I love you for you. I love you for your strengths and your weaknesses and I’m sorry. But I love you.”

Hazel leaned into the hug and from the corner of her eye she saw a 10$ bill with a post it note, scrawled in Malcolm’s handwriting. _From Travis and Conner, idk what for._

But Hazel knew. She knew how the brothers had found her in Nico’s room. No tears running down her faces, just blood curling screams being ripped from her throat. The brothers had calmed her down and said the one think that kept her hope for a year and a half.

_“Listen Hazel by your next birthday he’ll be back.” Travis had whispered, cradling her in his lap, while his brother stroked her hair._

_“He wouldn’t be. He’s gone. Like Mom and Marie and Bianca. Gone.” Hazel croaked out._

_“No.” Connor soothed her. “He’s coming back. I’ll bet you.” Connor reached into his back pocket and pulled out a 10 dollar bill. “I’ll bet you 10 dollars that he’ll come back before you turn 16. I win, you give me 10 bucks, you win it’s the other way around.”_

And Hazel had won.

Nico came home right after she turned 16.

Bloody, out cold but home.

She squeezed her brother a little tighter than usual.

**~**

**“We're family, right? We foul up and say we're sorry and let it go.”**

**― Christina Daley, Seranfyll**

**~**

**Author's Note:**

> Nico is an asshole fore leaving tbh and some how Percy ended up in jail for 16 years Talk to me on [tumblr](http://plusnico.tumblr.com)!!


End file.
